


Principles of Lust

by AdelaCathcart



Series: Violators [6]
Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Blasphemy, Chores, Cultural Relativism, Daemon Touching, F/M, Foreshadowing, Pre-Canon, Zombies, foot stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:27:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22890226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdelaCathcart/pseuds/AdelaCathcart
Summary: “I could choke you. I could kick your teeth in,” she murmurs, frowning like she’s considering it. “I could really hurt you.”The metal taste of her toes lingers on his lips and something deep in his breast is desperately fluttering. He’s breathless, and he’s never breathless. “Yes. You could.”Delighted, she shakes off her dæmon and pounces on him, knocking him flat on his back. She cradles his head in her arms so her violent kiss doesn’t concuss him, but a wicked smile twists her mouth and she gives more teeth than tongue. “I could ruin you. If he knew you had been here he’d kill you,” she says dreamily as she softly bites at Asriel’s lips. “I could tell him myself. I could say you forced me. Shall I?”
Relationships: Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter
Series: Violators [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610350
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37





	Principles of Lust

**Author's Note:**

> "But whose idea was it to do that cutting in the first place?"  
>  "It was hers. She guessed that the two things happen at adolescence might be connected: the change in one's dæmon and the fact that Dust began to settle. Perhaps if the dæmon were separated from the body, we might never be subject to Dust—to original sin. The question was whether it was possible to separate the dæmon and body without killing the person. But she's traveled in many places, and seen all kinds of things. She's traveled in Africa, for instance. The Africans have a way of making a slave called a _zombi_. It has no will of its own; it will work day and night without ever running away or complaining. It looks like a corpse..."  
>  "It's a person without their dæmon!"  
>  "Exactly. So she found out that it was possible to separate them."  
> — _Northern Lights/The Golden Compass ___
> 
> "By defaming the desires of those who are poor as illegitimate and evil, witchcraft accusations legitimate success." —Niehaus, _Witches and Zombies of the South African Lowveld: Discourse, Accusations, and Subjective Reality_
> 
> _  
> _🎶Editing tomorrow, posting tonight 🎶_  
> _

“D’you know, I think he likes you better than me,” Marisa complains, shifting the focus of her scowl from her own reflection to Asriel's behind her in the vanity mirror.

The monkey clings warily to his jacket, and Asriel lays a reassuring hand on his small back. “I’ve never hit him. That might be the reason.”

“Haven’t you? _She_ has, at any rate,” she shrugs, eyeing Stelmaria who’s perched on the foot of her bed. “Don’t let her leave any fur around my room. I shouldn’t even let you be in here.”

“Surely you have a maid.”

“Not one bright enough to keep her mouth shut, unfortunately.”

“Bribe her. We could stay all afternoon.”

“Personally I always prefer a stick to a carrot,” she replies, tugging the brush through her hair savagely. “Ugh, there’s this snarl.”

“No need to tell me. Brutality is one of your finest attributes.” Asriel lifts the monkey to his shoulder and takes the brush from her hand. He sweeps her hair aside to kiss her neck before examining the knot for himself. “This is terrible, Marisa, how did you even manage it?”

“Stop! You don’t know what you’re doing. Give that to him.” The monkey hops from Asriel’s arms to the vanity, snatching the hairbrush as he goes, and Marisa faces away so he can put his tiny black hands to work, deftly loosening the ugly knot strand by spun-gold strand. It must be hurting her but her face shows perfect calm. It’s a point of pride for her, he’s learned: she guards her distress like a wounded animal, and only when there’s something to be gained by it does she let it show. He’s become sensitive to the most subtle variations in the way she holds herself, the tremble of her chin when she’s suppressing a smile, the cloudy look in her eyes that betrays some unspoken pain. It’s a form of wayfinding, spotting the guide markers that lurk in strange terrain, which he’s always had a knack for. He can track her moods with some confidence now but he’s loath to let on, lest she retreat to some even more obscure and private self. He’s getting to be almost as shameless a liar as she is, but letting her win would be worse.

Asriel settles cross-legged on the thick white carpet and leans back comfortably on his arms. Ignoring her look of disapproval, he casts a conspiratorial glance around the room.

“Are there no servants in the house now?”

“I sent them away. The truth is, I didn’t grow up with servants, and I’ve never gotten used to them skulking around when I want to be alone.”

Asriel is amused by this. “So if it hadn’t been me at the door, but a deliveryman or a friend of your husband’s or something, who would’ve let him in? You?”

“No one. I would’ve ignored him. Really, Asriel, don’t you do anything for yourself?"

“My household is run by a small staff. Some of them have been with my family for generations. I suppose you’d have them all out on the street.”

“I’d like to see you try to get by without them, that’s all. I wonder whether you can even tie your own shoe.”

“I can, but I’d rather tie yours.” He leans forward, capturing one of her stockinged feet between his hands like a pigeon. He pulls it to his face and presses a kiss to her instep, then softly bites her toes through the sheer fabric. Her nose wrinkles in cautious pleasure, sharp front teeth slightly bared, eyes locked on his as she lets him rub his mouth against the bridge and suck her inner ankle. When he nips his way up her calf she laughs and jerks her leg away, but he catches her by the heel and holds it until she stills. He kisses her toes again and then opens his jaw wide to take in her whole forefoot, lower lip curled around the arch. The fine silk feels rough on his tongue as he probes the base of her big toe. He can see she’s making an effort to keep still.

“I could choke you. I could kick your teeth in,” she murmurs, frowning like she’s considering it. “I could really hurt you.”

He stares up at her unguardedly, teeth scraping lightly as he lets her go. The metal taste of her toes lingers on his lips and something deep in his breast is desperately fluttering. He’s breathless, and he’s never breathless. “Yes. You could.”

Delighted, she shakes off her dæmon and pounces on him, knocking him flat on his back. She cradles his head in her arms so her violent kiss doesn’t concuss him, but a wicked smile twists her mouth and she gives more teeth than tongue. “I could ruin you. If he knew you had been here he’d kill you,” she says dreamily as she softly bites at Asriel’s lips. “I could tell him myself. I could say you forced me. Shall I?”

Instead of answering, he gets to his feet, holding her by the hips so her legs lock around his waist as he carries her to the bed. Flinging back the dark green counterpane, he drops her underneath him and leans in close, licking her from her jaw to her temple. Two large glass buttons at her side hold her charcoal-colored wrap dress closed, and he plucks at them impatiently. “Take this off before I rip it off you,” he hisses in her ear. Her eyes are childishly wide as she fumbles at her waist, and she winces when he slaps her hands away and undoes the dress himself. He’s not sorry for frightening her because she frightened him first. In fact he can't wait to repay her.

Imperiously, he flicks the dress open, pausing to admire her smooth abdomen, bare and panting. Tiny buttons below each breast attach the crossed back-straps of her brassiere, and he’s already sucking her through the cream-colored silk as he unfastens them. The wet fabric clings to her skin so she looks even more naked than without it. He peels it away and smears rough hungry kisses over her breasts, squeezing them in both hands to push more of her flesh into his face, leaving clustered pink welts on the delicate skin, pinching insistently at one nipple while he tugs the other with his lips and teeth. He listens closely for signs that she’s in pain, but to his irritation her sighs are deep and regular.

“Don’t be angry with me, Asriel, please,” she pleads, slipping her hand into his trousers. “I didn’t mean what I said. You know that, don’t you?”

“Not a bit,” he replies, but her touch saps the conviction from his voice. He falls to his elbows over her, nuzzling her hair as she unbuttons his shirt. Her threats worry him less than they should, and her show of remorse is endearing. Feigned or not, it’s charming to hear her beg, all the more so when she’s undressing him. Marisa sits up a little and wriggles out of her sleeves and underthings, and without looking, Asriel sweeps the discarded clothes to the floor. He spits in his hand and guides himself home with one abrupt stroke, mirrored by a swift jerk of her hips. At last she rewards him with a gasp and a whimper, and this time his gaze meets another as fierce as his own, and they move as one.

“I could never hurt you, my love, not really. No more than _she_ could—“ She means Stelmaria, stretched on her back with the monkey stroking her belly. It’s an odd comparison from a woman whose dæmon sometimes flinches at her touch, and so intimate it almost makes him ill. With a short laugh he pulls back to look into her face, but she’s as much in earnest as he’s ever seen her, her eyes passionate and tragic. “For you are a part of my soul, Asriel, don’t you see, just as I am yours.”

One day the memory of these words will bring them both great sorrow, and normally he might put a stop to such talk. But at this moment, when the very idea of being elsewhere than inside her is abhorrent, he can’t imagine anything more true.

Afterwards the sheets are a mess. Marisa opens the French doors that lead to the balcony to let some fresh air in the room. “We’ll have to change the bed,” she says as she dresses. “You strip the sheets while I go get some clean ones.”

He stares at her.

“Take the sheets and pillowcases off and stuff them down the laundry chute. Keep the pillows and the bedspread.”

When she returns from the linen closet he’s done what she asked and dressed besides, which she’s too proud to acknowledge and he’s too proud to point out. Instead she unfurls the fitted sheet and shows him how to fold it over the mattress, while their dæmons doze in each other’s arms on a patch of sunlit carpet. The scene is so blissfully domestic he can’t help but ruin it.

“What you said about the soul. What did you mean by that?”

“Oh, please don’t embarrass me,” she groans as she smooths the counterpane. “One says things carelessly in moments of passion.”

“You don’t. What were you getting at?”

She sighs, rolling her head back and forth to buy time. “I’ve been around a bit,” she finally replies, which isn’t quite an answer. “In Africa I—“ She gives him a sidelong glance. “Have you ever seen a witch steal a man’s essence?”

“Five minutes ago.”

She snorts. “The witches of the Arctic take mortal men for their lovers—I daresay you’ve encountered them in your own travels—but the African witches love only their sisters, and when they use a man he seldom escapes with his life.”

“Men who’ve scorned the love of an Arctic witch would likely say death is cleaner.”

“They might say that, if you could ever find one who had. Well, the witches can separate from their dæmons—”

“I’ve seen you do that too.”

“—but they can also take away another person’s dæmon, so that person becomes their slave.”

“ _Take_ it? How? Where?”

“They keep it prisoner. I never found out how. And a slave whose dæmon has been removed in this way is called a _zombi_. It has no will of its own, it doesn’t think or feel. It eats a little plain porridge and it works and that’s all.”

“Disgusting.”

“I don’t know, they seemed content enough. But I’ll try to contain my shock that landed English nobility disapproves of indigenous African religious practices.”

“Do that. What’s your point, Marisa?”

“Only this: removing the person’s dæmon seemed to return them to a state of innocence. Like mankind before the fall.”

Stelmaria’s tail is twitching, her ears flat against her head. Asriel opens his arms and she comes to him, resting her chin possessively on his knee. The familiar muscles of her shoulders are strong under his hand. _Never_ , he thinks to her passionately. _Pity anyone who’d try._

“What you’ve described sounds barely human.”

“I think it sounds rather peaceful. No greed or vanity, no lust. No sin.”

“So when you compared me to your soul…”

“This, what we’re doing… it’s a terrible sin. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done.”

“I find that very difficult to believe.”

“Nothing can come of it but misery. It would be better if we’d never met. You don’t think so?”

“No, I don’t, and nor do you. Are you saying you want to _remove_ him? Your own dæmon? Or did you mean me?”

She shakes her head miserably. “What difference could it make now? We’re irrevocably saturated with it. We’re already damned. It’s far too late for us both.”

For an answer he moves to her side, takes her face in his hands and kisses her. For a moment she's unresponsive but then she seems to revive in his arms, her posture relaxing, the color returning to her cheeks. There is no meaning to this, he thinks vaguely, no moral weight behind the movement of mouth on eager mouth. There is beauty, and excitement, and sensual pleasure, and right or wrong has no place in it. Love is enough.

His fingers snag in her hair and she doesn’t bother to hide a yelp of pain. “It's hopeless,” she says, feeling for the snarl. “I let you distract me and now I'll never be able to undo it. This will have to be cut.”

“Let me see it,” he says, beckoning with the hand that holds his open pocket knife. She sits on the bed and bends forward until her forehead rests on her knee, and in a moment the impossible knot is severed. He palms it and stuffs it with the knife back in his pocket, and refuses to think about why.

“Woman, thou art loosed,” he says.

She laughs for a long time with her hands over her face, in a way that looks very much like weeping. When she turns back to him her eyes are full of love and loathing. “Promise me you’ll make me laugh like that when we’re both burning in Hell.”

He can't promise this, so he kneels between her knees, opens her skirt, and kisses her until she forgets. Then he rests his head in her lap and she strokes his hair in silence.

Suddenly her hand tenses, but it’s a moment before Asriel knows why. “Use the fire escape—“ she hisses, pushing him through the French doors onto the balcony and at the same time he hears the front door unlock downstairs as the man of the house comes in.

“Marisa, you…”

“Yes, goodbye,” she says impatiently, strangely ice-cold in that way she has when her attention has already moved elsewhere. She latches the door behind him and draws the blinds, but between the slats he spies her run a hand through her hair and rehearse a brilliant smile at the vanity mirror. The monkey is peeping out at him with Marisa’s own loneliness etched in his ancient face. Stelmaria butts her head gently against the glass between them. Ignoring them both, Asriel kneels to tie his shoes.

An iron ladder runs up the side of the house, easily accessible from the balcony. The bottom is too high to be reached from the ground, but for a person climbing down the drop is safe enough. For a leopard, it presents a challenge.

He gives his dæmon a quizzical look.

“You take the ladder,” she answers. “When you’re halfway down I’ll jump.”

Just before he swings his long leg over the balcony railing, Asriel looks up at the French doors again and has a glimpse of the other man, hatefully at ease, dropping into the bed the two of them made.

**Author's Note:**

> "And behold, there was a woman whom Satan had stricken with a disease, as the spirit of covetousness is that spirit, that maketh a man covetous, and was bowed as they are whose sinews are shrunk, and could not lift up herself in any wise. When Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said to her, Woman, thou art loosed from thy disease. And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight again, and glorified God." —Luke 13:11-13, 1599 Geneva Bible
> 
> Here's the dress: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/172061
> 
> Here's the bra: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O350847/brassiere-unknown/
> 
> Here's the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvQcX5yfTD8
> 
> Here's the monkey: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/503964/i-darwin-oral-history-ikea-monkey


End file.
